The Astronomy Club of
Augusta hosted Telescopes on the Lawn for the SC State Star Party on April 05,
2014, Saturday 7-10:00PM at the RPSEC. Thirteen (13) members were present, including
two new members.Sixty-two people
attended the free planetarium shows and observed on the lawn with us.

Early in the evening we
reviewed and named different cloud patterns.We layed on towels to look at the moon,
Jupiter, and some bright stars.We set
up four scopes during the evening:Stan
brought the Televue and the 8"Meade.Mark Mo set up his reflector.And Emma received some help to get her small Celestron set up and focused, and also talked with most of
us to get some background information about beginning astronomy.

We focused in on the
terminator and Theophilus, Cyrillus,
and Catharina craters.Between the
clouds, we also caught glimpses of Jupiter, its bands, and its moons.Then Lalit reminded
us that the ISS would be coming over.Despite some naysayers, we did see it flitting behind the clouds, and
brightening again as it crossed the sky.Stan put a laser on it, so everyone confirmed it versus a plane in the
distance.It was rather exciting to see
this through the clouds.

Kenneth came by after an afternoon at the SC Astronomer's Meeting in Columbia. He heard some of the talks, saw some of the posters, talked to some of the professors from around the state and to their graduate students. He took his poster but now wishes he had asked them to announce his interest to get speakers for our programs for next year. In any case, he got some names and contacts. He saw our friend and speaker, Monique Aller. Clayton Heller told Kenneth at our last meeting, that she had accepted a position with his group as Associate Professor at GA State. We are happy to hear this good news for her.
After the meeting, they all went over to the State Museum, and enjoyed a tour of the new astronomy section, to be completed some time this summer.

John and Dan came by later. We all sat around for a while reviewing the status of the LX200, especially the controller computer board, as mentioned above (20140413). Then we went outside to try it out. It worked briefly, but then it had trouble again. Dan, Stan, and John feel that the problem may now be in the main computer board. Dan could not see any problem, so we will have to consider how we will get this checked out in more detail.

20140426ACAROMin

The Astronomy Club of Augusta met for its monthly star gaze on April 26
at NMR-DSO.

A total of 15 people attended:Ten 10 members, three 3 new members that night, and one 1 guest.

Members began showing up around 6:30PM. A short meeting was held to discuss a few
items of interest before we began setting up our scopes.

1.On May 10 we are hosting National
Astronomy Day/Night at RPSEC from 7:00pm -10:30pm. Volunteers are needed to participate in
setting up and manning scopes and other projects. Lisa volunteered to be our registrar. She could use some help. From
7-9PM, when it is still light outside, Stan and John will have indirect solar
scopes for observing and discussing the sun.We also plan to focus on the moon: Mark will help lead our discussion of its phase,
terminator, position, ecliptic, maria, craters , and
other features.We will distinguish
types of telescopes, all of which we will have available:Newtonian and Dobsonian
reflectors, Refractor, and Schmidt-Cassegrain.We will talk about responsible lighting, and
have some brochures available. Tedda will
bring Dot-to-dot constellation pictures to show people, and then later point
them out in the sky. Kenneth will have
his laptop with Stellarium and Virtual Moon Atlas running
and is available to help out when/where needed.Ervin, Pat, Elisabeth and Ian will help too.

Ray has agreed to bring his reflector scope with dobsonian
mount and show Jupiter and the 4 Galilean moons.Dave P. will bring his 12” scope with fork
mount. He will show off Saturn in Libra,
and also help point out various stars and other planets in the sky. We would
welcome a lot more help to double up on these topics, and also to cover other
topics.Please volunteer.

2. John filled us in on the
progress of the LX200. Dan cleaned it up
and appeared to have found the problem and fixed it. But when we hooked it up to try it, a fuse blew.John discussed two options: 1. replacing the electronics or 2. Placing the
tube on an equatorial mount with goto.Tedda will try to gather the details in writing for these options, with pros and cons, for further discussion.We also discussed methods for raising the
money to pay for getting this valuable scope running.

Soup and crackers along with dessert enticed a few to hang around and
eat, but others went out to begin setting up scopes.Several scopes were set up including: 8” Newtonian
reflector (Stan), 8”
Dobsonian reflector (Ray), LX200 (David), 8” Celestron
Edge (Pat), Genesis refractor (Stan). Mark was taking pictures on his Canon T-3
Rebel. David also took photos with his
__________. Everyone had a great time. Beautiful skies prevailed.

M-3 was spectacular and even the Orion Nebula showed off before it set
in the west. The Beehive cluster was there in all its glory. Mars, Jupiter and
its moons, and even Saturn with Titan were great views in all the scopes. Stan presented a sky walk-through with our
guest John H. Everyone started packing
up

around 11:30PM. Thank you Stan & Tedda for the refreshments and hosting the event.

Our next outreach event will be on May 10 for National Astronomy Night
(NAN) at the RPSEC as discussed above. Our
next meeting will be on May 16 at RPSEC.Please check our ACA website, Calendar of Events page for details.